‘Criminal Minds’ Star Grieves Heartbreaking Personal Loss

Criminal Minds‘ Joe Mantegna is marking the loss of his late mother-in-law, Marie Vrhel, on what would have been her 102nd birthday.

The actor, 77, took to Instagram on Monday with a photo of himself with the late mother of his wife, Arlene Vrhel.

“Today would have been my mother in law Marie’s 102nd birthday,” Mantegna wrote in the caption. “I send her best wishes to heaven for the gift of her daughter.”

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Marie died on Sept. 17, 2016, at the age of 93, according to her obituary, more than four decades after Mantegna and Arlene tied the knot.

The couple first met in 1969 while starring in a local production of Hair as high school students in Chicago, Ill. The two started dating not long after, according to a 1997 article from PEOPLE, but didn’t feel any pressure to get married until 1975, when they decided to say “I do” at the top of the Eiffel Tower in France.

“We just had a lot of fun, but we didn’t get married for the longest time because we were hippies,” Arlene told the outlet a the time.

After the couple got married, they left Chicago for California in order to allow Mantegna to pursue his acting career further. They eventually would move back to Chicago, where Mantegna earned a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for Glengarry Glen Ross in 1984.

The couple would go on to welcome daughter Mia in 1987 and daughter Gina (now Gia) in 1990.

Mantegna has regularly paid tribute to his mother-in-law throughout his marriage to her daughter, thanking her on X (formerly Twitter) in August 2023 for the “gift” of Arlene.

“As today is my late mother-in-law’s birthday there is no gift I can send her,” he wrote at the time. “However, I can thank her for the gift of her daughter, for the wife and mother she is and continues to be over the 50 years we’ve been together. Happy Birthday Marie. Love, Joey.”